Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/316

256 improved system of instruction adopted. Every such Government or Missionary school, when established, displaces one or more native schools of the same class and throws out of employment one or more native teachers. If it has not this immediate effect, their fears at least are excited, and ill-will is equally produced. It is too much to expect that those from whom we take, or threaten to take, their means of livelihood should co-operate with us or look with a favourable eye on the improvements we wish to introduce. It appears from the records of the General Committee of Public Instruction, from which I derived the statements on this subject, that this was to some extent the effect produced by the Government Chinsurah schools; and in my recent journeys I have witnessed the dissensions that have arisen in villages by the rivalry of Bengali schools in which gratuitous instruction was given by paid agents of benevolent Christian societies with Bengali schools of native origin from which the teachers obtained their subsistence in forms of fees and perquisites. Instruction rightly communicated should produce peace and good-will; and we may be sure there is something wrong when the effect of employing means to extend education is perceived to be hate and contention leading even to breaches of the public peace.

Another point of view in which the plan may be deemed objectionable is that, to whatever extent it may succeed, it will practically take the management of education out of the hands of the people and place it in the hands of the Government superintendents. On such a plan school-houses are built, teachers appointed and paid, books and stationery supplied, instructions and superintendence given, all at the expense of Government; and without any demand upon parents for exertion, or sacrifice or any room being left for their interference or control, their children have merely to attend and receive gratuitous instruction. It does not appear that this is the way to produce a healthy state of feeling on the subject of education in the native community. If Government does every thing for the people, the people will not very soon learn to do much for themselves. They will remain much longer in a state of pupillage, than if they were encouraged to put forth their own energies. Such a course is the more objectionable because it is the substitution of a bad for a good habit, almost all the common or vernacular education received throughout the country being at present paid for. Government should do nothing to supersede the exertions of the people for their own benefit, but should rather endeavour to supply what is deficient in the native systems, to improve what is imperfect, and to extend to all what is at present confined to a few.

Again, a general scheme of new schools under public control and direction would entail on Government all the details of